Steam for Linux

Technically, this is probably a feature request, but, since I can't seem to post in the other linux forums, it is going here. I'm a longtime arch linux user (6+ years), and I'm also very new to using Steam (just installed a few weeks ago). I can't help but notice that Steam seems to be designed very much in a "single-workspace" fashion - a window that tries to "stay out of the way" of other windows. Which is great, when all you have is a single workspace. But on linux, I can have as many as I want. Most people run 4 workspaces at any given time. I feel like the steam overlay could be integrated into a custom desktop environment, or Steam itself could be integrated into a larger desktop environment much more efficiently than it is now. The main reason for this would be to bind Steam keys (particularly Shift+Tab) to the Desktop Environment level. The cool thing about linux is that you can play around with this sort of tight integration of software and make it feel really seamless. I feel that it would stand a good chance of improving stability for games like TF2, where I want to pull up the overlay and chat with people while loading a map (something TF2 seems to greatly dislike). While the overlay shouldn't stop TF2 from loading, the DE-level keybindings would allow the user to bypass the instability of the program by attaching the command to a completely different process/thread, and the compositor of the DE would handle the transparency of the overlay, leaving the TF2 process untouched and loading just fine.

This is the kind of stuff I feel that Valve should be playing around with in linux, if they're really interested in moving over to linux as the gaming platform of choice.

Obviously, this presents the potential problem of "DE wars". So please, in your comments, avoid talking about specific Desktop Environments. From a configuration perspective, most of the major ones can be tweaked minimally for this sort of integration. If Valve wanted to be ridiculous bosses, they could build a custom fluxbox or enlightenment DE and have it run on a separate X server, taking integration up a few notches. Valve is full of very talented people, and this post is made in the hopes of enlightening some of them as to what is possible and supportable in linux, things that are simply inconceivable on other platforms.

No. Doing so completely distracts from the main ideas in the original post. 4 workspaces is the de facto standard (possibly because some DEs use cube animations when switching between them). Every person I know personally who uses linux as their main OS uses 4 workspaces. This is good enough for a hypothetical discussion on the internet lacking both professional publishing and peer review.

One nice thing about steam is that you run it on Win, Mac or Lin and you know what to expect. It's the same everywhere. Changing it to make a Linux version different would be, I feel, a mistake.

This is a worthy sentiment. But I think you're misunderstanding what I'm getting at. I'm not necessarily suggesting that Steam should look or be functionally different from any other operating system (although I do think that if there's a time to consider something like that, that time is now). What I am suggesting is the offloading of typical Steam functionality to various parts of the host DE through careful integration and process management.

No. Doing so completely distracts from the main ideas in the original post. 4 workspaces is the de facto standard (possibly because some DEs use cube animations when switching between them). Every person I know personally who uses linux as their main OS uses 4 workspaces. This is good enough for a hypothetical discussion on the internet lacking both professional publishing and peer review.

Only because the standard setting for Gnome, XFCE and KDE is having >= 1 virtual desktop doesn't mean they actually use it.

I really dislike when programs integrate too tightly with whatever I happen to use to click on things and move windows because for whatever reason my comfortable configuration is never quite the standard and it always leaves redundancies and wonkyness around the edges. I am personally all for Steam being in it's own little window and being little more than a very specialized and smooth web browser. To each his own, though.

I imagine in the long run Big Picture mode is their preference for the all encompassing GUI, like it or not.

As for the multiple desktops I never bother with more than 2. I have to have to have quite a few windows up for work but I fit it fine with two monitors. On my home machine it's quite rare for me to even use my second unless it's documentation and chat.